Page - 493 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Vision of Peace with Victory 493 Albania, which how now been cleared of two-thirds of the Entente troops there, was not an enemy state for Austria-Hungary, but it was  – more so than the other territo- ries that the Turks had evacuated in 1912  – searching for an internal order. Before the war, two powers had shared influence in Albania : Austria-Hungary and Italy. During negotiations with Italy at the beginning of 1915, Vienna had hoped it could prevent an Italian entry into the war by conceding the Alpine state more influence in Albania as well as the occupation of Vlorë. In this way, Italy would control the Strait of Otranto. But Italy took this merely as capital requirements. Now, at the beginning of 1916, it had to be asked which aims Austria-Hungary should pursue in the long term in Albania, provided that it was even in a position to apply its policies for a long time in the ‘land of the Shqiptars’. As in the case of Montenegro and Serbia, Conrad advocated a complete annexation, and even initially made the further advance of Austro-Hungarian troops to Albania dependent on the land ultimately joining the Habsburg Monarchy.1177 Other- wise, the sacrifices and the military expenditure could not be justified. In the question of annexations, Conrad demonstrated ever more radicalism. In the process, however, Archduke Friedrich’s profile also benefitted a little, which could perhaps be traced back to the influence of Count Herberstein, since the Army Supreme Commander very clearly made the case for an enlargement of the Dual Monarchy.1178 Conrad and Frie- drich made their view clear not only to their own Foreign Ministry, however, but also to the Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand during his next visit to Cieszyn in mid-February 1916. According to Conrad, the territory of Kosovo Polje around Pristina coveted by the Bulgarians, but also the territory to the west of this around Prizren and Peć, were in the Austrian sphere of influence. At the Ballhausplatz (Austro-Hungarian Imperial Chan- cellery), the Chief of the General Staff said that war should not be risked with Bulgaria but that it was the task of the Foreign Ministry to make Austrian demands unmistake- ably clear.1179 Conrad did not want to accept what the Bulgarians offered in defence of their standpoint : the Habsburg Monarchy, argued Sofia, had stated very clearly before the campaign against Serbia that it would only occupy a bridgehead near Belgrade and Šabac. Was this no longer valid ?1180 Conrad responded with fury, to the effect that ‘the idea of such a sad construction as the bridgehead idea [could only] originate with the other side’, but not with those responsible from the military. The Imperial and Royal Army High Command thus steered an unvarnished an- nexationist course. Objections that the heir to the throne Archduke Karl also made in respect of Hungary were pushed aside : just because Tisza did not want any territorial gains out of consideration for the precarious equilibrium of the Hungarian half of the Empire, this could not be allowed to prevent the enlargement of the Dual Monarchy. Hungary wanted only Dalmatia, which Conrad decisively rejected. From a Central European point of view and with respect to the aspects of the reorganisation of the Dual Monarchy, thinking in terms of the two halves of the Empire and strictly meas-